


even if it takes all night or a hundred years

by An_Optimist_Prime



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dysfunctional Relationship, Guilt and remorse, M/M, Post-TRoS, but they do love each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28427907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/An_Optimist_Prime/pseuds/An_Optimist_Prime
Summary: Suddenly, another voice cuts through the haze of his grief. “What do you want, Ren?”Kylo looks up. There, standing before him, is Hux. He’s dressed in his parade uniform and greatcoat, his vibrant hair gelled back with not a strand out of place. There’s a scorched hole through his chest from a blaster bolt, and another wound in his thigh. His skin is deathly pale.It takes Kylo a moment to speak. “Hux.”“The very same,” Hux says, his tone withering. His eyes are as green and sharp as ever. “Now, why did you summon me?”-Even after everything, they still find their way back to each other.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 25
Kudos: 92
Collections: Kylux Advent Calendar 2020





	even if it takes all night or a hundred years

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Даже если придется потратить всю ночь или сотню лет](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29054274) by [Lenuchka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenuchka/pseuds/Lenuchka), [WTF Kylo and Hux 2021 (Our_Own_Star_Wars)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Our_Own_Star_Wars/pseuds/WTF%20Kylo%20and%20Hux%202021)



> This fic was written for the  [ Kylux Advent Calendar 2020 ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/KyluxAdventCalendar2020) , for prompts #30 (“The Past”) and #31 (“New Beginnings”). I’ve been working on this fic since TROS came out, and this seemed like the best time to finish it.
> 
> Huge thanks to  [ Rudbeckia ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudbeckia/pseuds/rudbeckia) for beta reading the first draft of this fic. 
> 
> Title is from Billie Eilish’s “Lovely” which was coincidentally my most-played song on Spotify for 2020. Go figure.

The thing about death is that it’s lonely.

Kylo supposes he probably deserves it, that this is his punishment, his atonement during hist for everything he’d done. He’d always hated how alone he fel life, so it figures that the force would make this his penance. Wherever he was, whatever _this is_ , there was no one else. Not even his parents appeared to him.

Why would they, when he was Kylo Ren?

His time is spent bound in visions of the past, old memories flickering before him. What else is there to do, with nothing but himself and time for eternity? He sees memories of his family, back when he was young. Of being taken away to Luke’s temple, of later destroying it, and cutting down anyone who stood in his way.

There’s a distance to all of it, though. He’s slowly getting the hang for how it all works. So far, he’s managed to make himself more or less corporeal, and he has some control over which memories he sees. He’s always just watching, though, never able to reach out and touch, or change what happens.

It gives him sufficient time to reflect on his past choices, and many regrets.

More and more often, his visions are of Hux.

Those memories are simultaneously his most revered and despised. They had been something more than rivals, once. Both had insisted on keeping emotions out of it, their physical relationship providing nothing more than convenient stress release.

It was just another thing he’d failed at. How could he not, when Hux was the only person who had ever seemed to like him for what he was? He’d gotten too invested, too quickly, and then resented Hux when he didn’t feel the same.

The visions shift, this time to Crait.

And this, this memory is definitely one he despises. He tries to pull himself away, but the force won’t allow him to leave, not this time. He watches, and hates himself all the while, as his past-self lashes out with the force and throws Hux against the wall of the command shuttle. He watches as Hux forces himself to his feet with a grunt of pain and a vicious glare, and stalks out of the room.

He wants to follow him. He wants to apologise, to promise it will never happen again. More than anything, he wants to reach out, to simply just touch him again.

But these are memories, and nothing can change them. And so, he can only watch as his past-self marches out to face Skywalker, a mere illusion. Back then, he did not look back.

He does now though, and he _aches_.

It’s an empty, gnawing feeling that rips through him, filling him with the want and need to simply have Hux be close. But most of all, with regret and sorrow. Whatever was building between them had died on that planet, unable to survive their growing resentment and bitterness toward each other. After Crait, any chance they’d had to correct their course had been shattered.

Then it hits him, all at once. He’ll never see or speak to Hux, the real Hux, ever again. He’s dead, moved on to wherever those without force sensitivity go when they pass.

Something dislodges in his chest at that moment, and he calls out, stricken, “Hux!”

The call, predictably, does nothing. There’s only him, it will only ever be him. His lungs pull in rough breaths they no longer need, and he collapses to the ground, barely catching himself in the salty earth.

Suddenly, another voice cuts through the haze of his grief. “What do you want, Ren?”

Kylo looks up. There, standing before him, is Hux. He’s dressed in his parade uniform and greatcoat, his vibrant hair gelled back with not a strand out of place. There’s a scorched hole through his chest from a blaster bolt, and another wound in his thigh. His skin is deathly pale.

It takes Kylo a moment to speak. “Hux.”

“The very same,” Hux says, his tone withering. His eyes are as green and sharp as ever. “Now, why did you summon me?”

“I didn’t summon you,” Kylo states, in disbelief.

"Yes you did," Hux insists, sneering."It was impossible to miss, and so very unbecoming of a Supreme Leader. You called out, all desperate and anguished. It would have made even the hardest of hearts melt."

"But not yours?" Kylo asks. Stars, he’s missed him.

Hux gestures to the hole his chest. "I think the answer is clear."

Kylo doesn’t know what else to say. He can only stare at this apparition, which so convincingly takes the form of Hux. He must finally be starting to go mad from the isolation.

Hux looks around, before making a noise of disgust. “I truly detest this planet.”

Real Hux or no, Kylo can’t help but try to impress him. He concentrates and reaches out with the force, until the environment around them shifts to Ilum, to Starkiller base. They’re in the forest, on one of the peaks near the main compound. The sun is just beginning to rise, painting the sky a beautiful mix of red and gold. It’s gently snowing, although he can’t feel the cold.

After a moment, Hux takes a graceful seat next to him, something he never would have done in life. Kylo wonders how long this apparition will stay.

“You were the spy,” Kylo doesn’t ask, because he knows it’s true. He had felt the moment that Hux had died, as if the blaster bolt had struck him instead. It was only a few minutes later, when he’d received the message that the spy had been dealt with, that he’d put two and two together.

“I was.”

“Why?”

“Because you took everything from me, Ren,” Hux replies, rather sharply. “I had nothing left to lose. Honestly, I just wanted to see you suffer like I did.”

Kylo has no answer for that, so he says quiet. Minutes pass between them in silence, with only the soft sound of arctic winds through the trees to alleviate the silence.

“You saved the girl,” Hux says, his voice strangely devoid of emotion. Kylo knows him well enough to know that it’s only a front. “She stood against everything we fought for, everything we hoped to achieve. You knew her for only a handful of days, and you knew me for years and yet you still chose to save her.”

_You could save her but not me_ , remains unsaid between them.

Kylo studies him openly, then. It truly is Hux, no apparition or replicate. Somehow, he’d summoned him from wherever non-sensitives go after they die. He briefly wonders if he could summon others forward as well, but quickly discards the idea. There’s no one else he’d want to spend eternity with.

“Yes.” Kylo replies. There’s nothing else to say, it’s all true.

“Why?” Hux demands to know.

“It was the right thing to do.” Kylo replies. It was the only thing he could do, at that point. Trade his life force for hers and just fade into the force. What was left for him in the realm of the living, after everything he’d lost?

The answer predictably only enrages Hux.

“Fuck you!” Hux hisses, full of rage, like he’s the only one with any right to feel that way.

“Don’t even start,” Kylo snarls back, meeting Hux’s anger with his own. “You were going to shoot me in the throne room!”

“And you think that justifies everything you did? Everything that happened? Stars, I hate you,” Hux seethes, his voice full of venom. This is different, Kylo realises, from the charged rivalry they’d shared before the fall of Starkiller. This is genuine hatred. Whatever tenuous connection that had once shared has shattered. “I can’t believe I’m stuck with you for all eternity.”

“If you hate me so much,” Kylo snaps, like a feral creature caught in a snare. “Then why are you still here?”

"I told you, you summoned me,” Hux replies curtly, clearly done with the whole situation. “So, just tell me what you want and let’s be done with this."

“If I had known this would happen, I wouldn’t have!” Kylo snarls back, spitefully. It’s a complete lie, of course. If he had known, he would have summoned him forward the first moment he could. Wasn’t he only minutes earlier wishing for the chance to change it? To fix what had broken between them? But what was the point, when Hux clearly hated him?

They once again fall into silence. Minutes pass, the sun rises higher, and their shared space grows tense.

After a while, Hux sighs.

“I couldn’t do it, you know,” Hux says, once again breaking the silence. He turns his head to the side, looking away from Kylo. “In the throne room. All my life I killed those who stood in my way, and yet with you, I couldn’t do it.”

The quiet confession causes the pain in Kylo’s chest to return full force.

Spite had driven all of his choices after Crait. After all, he’d believed that Hux had wanted to kill him, that he’d meant nothing to him. So, he demoted him, decommissioned the Finalizer, and had taken any power he’d had left. No wonder Hux had turned to the Resistance.

Kylo sees now that he wasn’t the only one to fail at keeping their emotions out of it.

In that moment, he once again feels the impulse to reach out and touch him. He’s missed him, since Crait, if he’s being honest, even if their falling out had been his doing. He stops himself before he does, though. It wouldn’t be welcomed and honestly, he’s caused Hux enough pain at this point.

“I’m sorry,” Kylo professes, completely genuine. “For everything.”

“That doesn’t fix any of it.” Hux says, not taking his eyes off the sunrise.

“I know.” Kylo murmurs. Hux is right. He can’t change the past, or fix it. But, he can change the future, or whatever passes for it in the space that they occupy.

“Tell me to leave and I’ll leave,” Kylo says, making the words sound like a challenge that Hux would lose by saying yes. “I ruined your life, I won’t ruin your afterlife, too.”

That gets Hux’s attention. He turns to face him, before asking. “Who else are you here with?”

“Just you,” Kylo replies. “You’re the only other person I’ve seen.”

“You despise being alone.” Hux states. Despite his mask and all the walls he’s built around himself, Hux has always managed to see right through them.

“I do, but I love you more,” Kylo confesses, words he never said while alive. "So, tell me to leave and I'll leave."

"As if you'd ever do what I say." Hux states, his tone dismissive.

“I will,” Kylo promises, and he means it. “Anything you want.”

Hux examines him for a moment. Whatever he’s searching for in Kylo, he must fall short, because he says, “Then leave.”

It’s like a punch to the gut, but Kylo nods, taking one last look at Hux before closing his eyes. Perhaps someday he’ll get to see this memory again, too. He tries to concentrate, to find a place to go. It has to be sometime before the Order, before he met Hux. Sometime back when he first joined the Knights of Ren would work. They’re not particularly fond memories, but--

“Wait.” Hux commands.

Kylo stops, heart hammering in his chest even though he has no physical heartbeat anymore. He waits, steeling himself for the one last biting comment or insult.

“You were really going to do it.” Hux says, instead, surprised by Kylo’s willingness to leave.

“Yes,” Kylo vows. “I know you hate me, but I mean it. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“You truly are dense sometimes,” Hux says, but it’s more fond than vicious. He leans in, closer to Kylo. “What if I wanted you to stay? And make it up to me?”

“Anything,” Kylo says quickly, perhaps too quickly, his hope rapidly building as the distance between them decreases. “Although, I suspect that will take a while.”

“It will,” Hux says. “Good thing you have forever to do it.”

Hux leans in then, closing the distance between them and kisses him. It’s gentle and chaste, but still more than he thought he’d ever have again.

They still have a long way to go, but they have eternity to make it right.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I truly appreciate any kudos or comments you leave as well.
> 
> If you wanna read more Kylux, be sure to check out my other fics!
> 
> If you wanna talk fandom, come come find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/anoptimistprime) or [Tumblr](https://an-optimist-prime.tumblr.com/) 🧡🖤


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